


so please don't die

by superfast_pinetree



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underswap, Brotherly Affection, Depression, Songfic, Underswap Papyrus, Underswap Sans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:38:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8646889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfast_pinetree/pseuds/superfast_pinetree
Summary: Sans is dead. Papyrus thinks.





	

Sans is dead.

It takes about three days for Papyrus to really let it settle in. Sans, his brother. His childish, optimistic, perfect little blueberry of a monster is  _dead._ Nothing but dust to disappear and mold into the snow under the skeleton's feet. Nothing but shards of a soul that was once so, so full of life. Papyrus doesn't know whether to hate himself or not. To hate himself for the fact that it took three days for him to know the full extent of the issue. Three days to understand, to know.

Three fucking days.

The hoodie-clad male pressed his back up against the door to his brother's room, eyes half open as he let smoke enter his rib cage. The bones clattered as he let the smoke fill his entire body, before letting it all go, his bony structure in a wall of smoke before he waved it away with a lazy hand. He didn't want to go into that room, but at the same he did. So he did the best he could- sit next to the cold door, silent, staring. Staring at the flight of stairs that led down to the living room. That led to the front door. That led to the snowy outside. Snow that looked exactly like dust. Bittersweet.

Papyrus took in another drag.

Pain filled his magical lungs, prickling pain of the smoke that he grown used to all these years. The lungs strained, before he let it out through his nose hole, wheezing as it filled the air and dissipated into the hallway. His half opened eyes barely moved from the stairs as he brought the cigarette to his bony knuckle, wincing as he snuffed out the flame on the white. Papyrus's index finger flicked the cig from his hand, watching as it fell to the ground silently. To the growing pile of burned out cigarettes at his feet. His fingers reached in his pocket for the lighter, and when it did he tried to light it.

His thumb twitched, waiting for the burn. But it never came; it was broken, snuffed out itself. Papyrus snapped back into reality at this, staring at the broken lighter. A snuffed flame. A snuffed out little object that was meant to bring flame. Brightness, joy, light.

The lighter was a light blue.

Papyrus grimaced, curled his fist around the lighter and chucked it, listening to it smash against the wall and break as it fell to the carpeted floor.

The skeleton gasped, choked on nothing.

Silence.

He wanted another lighter.

His legs shook as he slowly arose to his feet, crushing the cigarettes in his hands and feet as he stood. He felt the ash on his fingers and toes, on his knuckles and his skeletal heels. He had been sitting there since very early in the morning, after he ventured out and retrieved the ice cold bandanna, lodged in a snowbank. Now it was on the couch, not stained from the cold water of melting snow, but salty, glowing orange stains. But the bandanna was not on Pap's mind. It was the lighter. He knew he had another one, but he had lost it. He knew it wasn't in his room, or the living room, or the kitchen. It certainly wasn't outside either. So, the process of elimination set in and soon, he realized. It could only be in one place.

The place he hated to go into, since three days earlier.

Maybe he shouldn't go?

...

His hand took the knob to the door, and he pushed it open, walking in.

The room nearly made him fall into a fit. The light blue walls, the glowing star stickers that Sans and him had put up so many years before, the science books stacked high on his shelf, the space poster that Alphys had given him after looking in the dump, the old quilt on his bed, the spaceship bed itself; it brought so many emotions forward that it made him shake. Shake and ball his hands into fists and wish for so many things to change. But he kept his composure, and walked to the bed, bare feet shuffling slowly on the dark purple carpet that Sans insisted that he hated when he was still alive.

All thoughts of the lighter were gone when he saw the orange hood on the bed. One of his replacement hoodies, one of the many that his brother cleaned for him. Folded neatly right in the middle of the bed.

Silence passed, but soon the emotions- just like the smoke from early- exploded from his rib cage as he collapsed, bones rattling and body shaking violently as he let the sobs pass. The horrible, wheezing, coughing sobs that were never this loud. Never so raw. His fist slammed into the bed, while the other covered his face. He punched the bed, not letting up, his cries too loud for the thumps to be heard.

He screamed. Screamed apologies, screamed promises to be a better brother, screams to clean the dishes and make batter puzzles and to wash his clothes and to take care of the glove that he never picked up. Screams and sobs of how he'll eat as many tacos as Sans wants, cries of how he'll let Sans tease him for all eternity if he would just  _come back._

His fist ached. His throat ached. His chest and head and entire body ached and soon enough he slowly quieted, digging his fingers into the blanket and silently letting his digits knead. Tears silently fell from his eyes, and he let out shaky breaths as deafening quietness filled the house that now only belonged to Papyrus.

Sans was dead.

And Papyrus was never able to say goodbye.

Never able to get him back. 


End file.
